John McCormack

June 6, 2012 11:06 AM

Here's an indication of just how impressive and broad-based Scott Walker's 7-point win was last night: If the Democratic strongholds of Dane County and Milwaukee County had 100 percent turnout of registered voters, and every other county remained the same, Walker still would have won the state by more than 100,000 votes.

In Dane, there are about 322,000 registered voters, and 254,000 people cast ballots there on Tuesday. In Milwaukee, there are about 520,000 registered voters, and 395,000 people cast ballots there on Tuesday. Imagine that Milwaukee and Dane had 100 percent turnout of registered voters (and the Walker/Barrett ratio held constant in each county): Walker would have won by 110,000 votes, rather than 170,000 votes. Walker would have won with 52 percent of the vote, rather than 53 percent.

And even if there had been 100 percent turnout of residents of voting age (not just registered voters) in Milwaukee and Dane, Walker still would have won the state by more than 30,000 votes.